Day Three Hundred Ninety Four #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Another long day. Though we had left the bush country behind, the bleakness continued, only changing in tenor. Our senses were overloaded with the sights, the sounds and the smells of desolation left in these fields laid waste by the locusts. I’d forgotten my first passage through them because they look so much worse than at that time. Something else has happened since then.

The stubble that was evident everywhere before, I believe has all been burnt away, if I have judged aright that the marks in the soil are indeed signs of scorching.

Elijah just made faces and kept on walking. It dried up the conversation between us.

I did find Mawuli’s snake carcass again, so we’re not lost.

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Day Three Hundred Eighty Three evening #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Enoch writes:

We have traversed into bushy terrain. Looks like even the locusts have passed it by. There are other things prowling about though, rustling in the bushes at night.

I have borrowed Mawuli’s sling and keep it close. Yet I must not trust mine own arm but to the One who strengthens it.

Day Three Hundred Eighty Two evening #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Enoch writes:

During a stop for rest, Mawuli chased his sister with a dead snake. Their mother was engaged otherwise, so I saw to his discipline.

Mary judged him suitably contrite before we again took up our march.

Sometime after that stop I realized we were passing through fields that formerly must have been highly cultivated. Now a wasteland, picked clean, I can tell, by the passage of those pests – the locusts.

Day Three Hundred Forty Seven #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

A long day. This despite the choice to take a boat across the harbor to the grain ship. The Captain thought it quicker.  Elijah was not happy because he desired to be on land.

The boat master seemed starved for business, at every opportunity he was touting this or that tourist site off the route determined by the Captain. Elijah and I paid close attention for future reference.

When we arrived at the ship that the Captain considers his by right of salvage, a vast throng was milling about awaiting handouts of grain or locusts, all rationed under the supervision of government officials.

The Captain was denied access and ordered away. But he promised to seek restitution and their punishment.

Day Three Hundred Thirty Four #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Elijah and the Captain came to a compromise of sorts. Records on the grain ship indicate that it was also headed for our next port of call. So Captain and crew are exercising salvage rights and now have it in tow while a skeleton crew tries to get it operational again.

The locusts aside, the Captain is of the opinion that there may be a substantial amount of grain beneath the weight of their carcasses.

Elijah is confident that this action will prove out to everyone’s benefit. He has one caution, however. He recommends that we only partake of the locusts in immediate contact with the grain, and avoid completely those found near human flesh.

We will see to it.

Day Three Hundred Thirty Three #DiaryoftheEndoftheWorld

Elijah was granted his wish today. The Captain held back his permission until after the search for the crew on the other ship was completed.

The remains of the other captain and his team were found in a barricaded cabin off the bridge deck, though not the entire crew. The rest must have gotten off. A fact that appeared to be proven when two lifeboats were discovered to be missing from their davits.

Elijah asked me to stay behind while he chose the Purser to accompany him over. They turned up one of the missing lifeboats. It was tucked up out of sight alongside of the grain ship, its occupants mere skeletons.

Elijah wants to collect some locusts for food.